Friday, Jun. 06, 2008

A look at Sasquatch and a new album with Death Cab (w/video)

By Jeremy Dutton, Paper Cuts

In the middle of touring for their new album Narrow Stairs, there was little time for Bellingham's Death Cab for Cutie to spend much time doing interviews during their stop last month at Sasquatch Music Festival.

So drummer Jason McGerr made up for it by giving me a call this week to catch up.

He got up for our early morning interview and was a little groggy (the same went for me) when he phoned from his hotel room in Minneapolis. And promised, "this will probably get better as I eat some breakfast and up my caffeine intake."

During the band's sunset set at The Gorge, they clearly enjoyed home court advantage as they had one of the most boisterous crowds of the day sardined near the stage.

McGerr said it's hard to appreciate the size and volume of the crowd when onstage, but the setting of The Gorge with the river in the background and thousands of people on the hill make it almost impossible to play a bad show.

On stage at The Gorge, Death Cab stomped through several of their heavier tracks off the new album, but also added a foreign vitality not present on many of their older, softer tunes. After coming off their tour for Plans, Death Cab seemed eager to flush out their sound as a band of four, not just three guys providing background noise for a pensive singer with a piano.

"Plans came from a piano," McGerr said. "Narrow Stairs was written around a guitar. Nick (Harmer, bassist) and I love the album. There's a thicker sound, and our rhythm section is more prominently featured."

The songwriting process for Narrow Stairs was a little different, too. During a break in the touring between Plans and Narrow Stairs, McGerr built himself a recording studio in Seattle called Two Sticks Audio. When he wasn't constructing his dream space, he was jotting down notes on songs lead singer Ben Gibbard would send the band from his retreat in California.

"They come in batches, sometimes he'd send a song a week," McGerr said. "Then we compile an A list and a B list. Some songs get completely stripped down. Some songs we'll take away the music and vocals and just keep the lyrics. We always spend time with it, though I think that's the benefit of being together so long -- we work really well together."

Death Cab won't be in the U.S. much longer. At the end of this month after a June 26 show in Troutdale, Ore., they head to Norway for a European tour and also will continue on to Japan and Australia. And McGerr can't wait, even though the band won't take another touring break until the fall of next year.

"Getting outside your own borders really changes your perspective of your own country. In some Australia towns, if not for the accent, it feels like you could be somewhere in the U.S. It looks like a big, scary world on a map. But once you see it, it's really not."

* Jeremy Dutton: 582-1525; jdutton@tricityherald.com.